Bringemovies
← Browse Movies
Forty Little Mothers
TITLE DETAILS

Forty Little Mothers

1940-04-26 · 90 min · ★ 6.5

Drama

An out-of-work professor gets a break from an old college buddy to teach at an exclusive girl's school. But events conspire against him: he finds an abandoned child which he takes under his wing, despite the school's rules against teachers having a family; and the girls in the school resent his replacing a handsome and popular teacher, and do everything in their power to get him fired.

Open detail page

Trailers are previews, not full movies.

No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.

Production details

Directors
Busby Berkeley
Production companies
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Countries
United States of America
Status
Released

Top Cast

Eddie CantorEddie CantorGilbert Jordan Thompson
Bonita GranvilleBonita GranvilleDoris
Judith AndersonJudith AndersonMadame Granville
Rita JohnsonRita JohnsonMarian Edwards
Ralph MorganRalph MorganJudge Joseph M. Williams
Martha O'DriscollMartha O'DriscollJanette
Veronica LakeVeronica LakeGranville Girl
Nydia WestmanNydia WestmanMadamoiselle Cynthia Cliche
Diana LewisDiana LewisMarcia
Esther DaleEsther DaleMrs. Mason the Landlady
Frances GiffordFrances GiffordGranville Girl
Margaret EarlyMargaret EarlyEleanor
Charlotte MunierLois
Louise SeidelBetty
Baby Quintanilla'Chum'
Margaret BertTeacher
George BookastaCarlos
Ed BradyEd BradyJob Seeker
Stephen ChaseStephen ChaseProfessor Lange
Jack ChefeJack ChefeLawyer

Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.

Where to watch

Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.

Recommendations

I Never Sang for My Father
★ 6.7
I Never Sang for My Father1970Drama

A man living in the towering shadow of his aging father finds it difficult to start a new chapter in his life by marrying his girlfriend and moving to California.

Child's Play
★ 6.1
Child's Play1972Drama

At an exclusive boys' school, a new gym teacher is drawn into a feud between two older instructors, and he discovers that everything at the school is not quite as staid, tranquil and harmless as it seems.

Submission
★ 5.9
Submission2018Drama

A well-respected professor who is a celebrated novelist and loving husband loses himself when he becomes obsessed with an ambitious and talented student.

Music of the Heart
★ 6.7
Music of the Heart1999Drama

After Roberta Guaspari separates from her husband, she receives encouragement from her mother to take up a job of a music teacher at the Central Park East School in East Harlem.

The Young One
★ 7.0
The Young One1960Drama

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

A Dry White Season
★ 6.7
A Dry White Season1989Drama

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

Sound of Christmas
★ 6.3
Sound of Christmas2016Drama

Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

Home Run
★ 6.2
Home Run2013Drama

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

Come Sunday
★ 5.8
Come Sunday2018Drama

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

The Christmas Shoes
★ 6.8
The Christmas Shoes2002Drama

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

The Ron Clark Story
★ 7.6
The Ron Clark Story2006Drama

Passionate and innovative teacher Ron Clark leaves his small hometown to teach in one of Harlem's toughest schools. But to break through to the students, he must use unconventional methods, including his ground-breaking classroom rules, to help them reach their potential. Based on a true story.

Tigertail
★ 6.7
Tigertail2020Drama

A man reflects on the lost love of his youth and his long-ago journey from Taiwan to America as he begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
★ 7.0
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie1969Drama

A headstrong young teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-old charges with her over-romanticized worldview.

Hardball
★ 6.5
Hardball2001Drama

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

Won't Back Down
★ 6.2
Won't Back Down2012Drama

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Class of 1984
★ 6.4
Class of 19841982Drama

Andy is a new teacher at an inner city high school that is unlike any he has seen before. There are metal detectors at the front door and the place is basically run by a tough kid named Peter Stegman. Soon, Andy and Stegman become enemies and Stegman will stop at nothing to protect his turf and drug dealing business.

Molly Maxwell
★ 6.5
Molly Maxwell2013Drama

At Phoenix Progressive School, students take notes lying on parlor couches and are encouraged to explore their gifts through electives like break-dancing and graphic-novel writing. In the midst of all this liberal pedagogy and budding talent, Molly Maxwell feels unexceptional, until she falls for her attractive English teacher, Ben.

Hands of Stone
★ 6.6
Hands of Stone2016Drama

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

Call Me Crazy: A Five Film
★ 7.0
Call Me Crazy: A Five Film2013Drama

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

TalhotBlond
★ 6.3
TalhotBlond2012Drama

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Similar titles

The Pride of the Firm
★ 6.5
The Pride of the Firm1914Drama

Der Stolz der Firma, meaning The Pride of the Business, is a classic German silent film from 1914. The film tells the story of a shrewd apprentice and is filmed in the comical style of director Lubitsch. This is one of the few Lubitsch films from World War I that wasn’t lost.

The Three from the Filling Station
★ 6.1
The Three from the Filling Station1930Drama

Willy, Kurt and Hans are broke, so they sell their car and open a filling station. Then, they all fall in love with the same girl.

Meet Me in St. Louis
★ 7.0
Meet Me in St. Louis1944Drama

A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Mother India
★ 7.0
Mother India1957Drama

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

Barren Lives
★ 7.4
Barren Lives1963Drama

A destitute family tries to escape the drought in the backlands of northeastern Brazil. Fabiano (Átila Iório), Sinhá Vitória (Maria Ribeiro), their two children and their dog Baleia wander aimlessly and almost hopelessly through the remote interior, surviving the forces of nature and the cruelty of men. An adaptation of the work by Graciliano Ramos.

The Mortal Storm
★ 7.4
The Mortal Storm1940Drama

The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. After the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Breitner, a family friend, is caught up in the turmoil.

Policewoman
★ 6.8
Policewoman2000Drama

A young police woman is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.

Andrei Rublev
★ 7.9
Andrei Rublev1966Drama

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

Inu-Oh
★ 7.5
Inu-Oh2022Drama

A cursed dancer and a blind musician — both ostracized by society — become business partners and inseparable friends as their larger-than-life concerts propel them to stardom in 14th century Japan.

Notes on a Scandal
★ 7.1
Notes on a Scandal2006Drama

A veteran high school teacher befriends a younger art teacher, who is having an affair with one of her 15-year-old students. However, her intentions with this new "friend" also go well beyond platonic friendship.

Stranger Than Fiction
★ 7.3
Stranger Than Fiction2006Drama

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.

Sweet Sixteen
★ 7.0
Sweet Sixteen2002Drama

Determined to have a normal family life once his mother gets out of prison, a Scottish teenager from a tough background sets out to raise the money for a home.

Lights in the Dusk
★ 6.8
Lights in the Dusk2006Drama

Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.

Games of Love and Chance
★ 6.7
Games of Love and Chance2003Drama

A group of teenagers living in a housing project in the outskirts of Paris rehearse a scene from Marivaux's play of the same name. Krimo is determined not to take part, but after developing feelings for Lydia, he quickly assumes the main role and love interest in the play.

Children of a Lesser God
★ 6.9
Children of a Lesser God1986Drama

Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.

Inherit the Wind
★ 7.6
Inherit the Wind1960Drama

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Or (My Treasure)
★ 6.6
Or (My Treasure)2004Drama

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

Away from Her
★ 7.1
Away from Her2007Drama

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

Porgy and Bess
★ 6.3
Porgy and Bess1959Drama

In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, loves the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.

Spoiled Children
★ 6.2
Spoiled Children1977Drama

Successful writer/director Bernard Rougerie is at a creative dead end and decides to isolate himself from his wife in order to complete the script for his next film. Bernard moves into an apartment building whose tenants are in the midst of a revolt against their abusive landlord. Reluctant at first, he joins their cause and then becomes involved in an affair with young, unemployed resident Anne.

Your favorites

Recently viewed

Watch

Choose an authorized server.

Full video from an operator-configured authorized source. Official trailers use a separate player. If a server fails, retry or select another authorized server.

Legal watch options

Official trailer

Trailer preview only. Press Play to start.

Privacy choices

Favorites stay in your browser. Movie images load from TMDb. YouTube trailers contact YouTube only after you allow external media and choose a trailer. Advertising consent, if ads are enabled, is managed separately by the operator’s certified CMP.

Privacy policy

After allowing external media, choose the trailer button to load its player.